Lost in translation

This reminded me of an article I read some time ago, which I largely agreed with but which made me hopping mad at the same time. It was 'Big biology is here to stay' by Steven Wiley, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Fellow and director of PNNL's Biomolecular Systems Initiative, which appeared in the The Scientist http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54854 webcite. Subtitled 'Why R01-funded biologists should throw their support behind large-scale science projects', the thesis of the article was that, "The business of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is to fund research that improves people's health, not fund our personal research projects." In the article Wiley confesses that he originally thought the Human Genome Project would be a waste of money, but now thinks "we were all wrong". He goes on to say that, "Starting new, large-scale research projects was a clear demonstration that NIH was willing to try new approaches to accelerate biomedical research... trying to shift funds away from these large projects will ensure that they do fail, and will be self-defeating in the long run. We'd better hope these projects are successful, and we should do all we can to help them."Now, given my well known views on the ascendancy of big science over little science, and the increasing tendency to direct research from the top down by bureaucratically initiated programs, you may be wondering why I say that I largely agree with Wiley's sentiments. The reason is that neither Wiley's column nor Collins' remark was really about big science in the sense that I mean it. I dislike large-scale, top-down programs; they are referring to projects aimed at translating the findings of biomedical research into therapies for human disease. Many of the big science projects that I regard as not worth continuing, like the structural genomics initiative, aim to advance fundamental knowledge rather than produce direct health benefits, and many of the others, like the effort to ass